Vice Principals' Walton Goggins Lets Us Peer Inside of His Brain for the Afternoon

Most actors just want to get through the interview. At the marching orders of their publicist, their agent, and the studio they just worked with, they are obliged to make the rounds with as many media outlets, in as many forms—print, online, radio, television—as possible. For most, it's an understandably exhausting burden. But not for Walton Goggins.

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Shortly after arriving at the restaurant at which we're meeting, the veteran of screens both big and small—he's had memorable roles in Justified, The Shield, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, and, most recently, alongside Danny McBride in HBO's Vice Principals—says,"I was thinking about this interview on the way over here: What am I gonna say to him? I'm not trying to impress him or not impress him. I'm gonna show up because he asked me to be here, and I'm gonna be here."

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were originally scheduled to talk over the phone the day before, but he was caught up at a fitting for a film and called to apologize, asking instead if we could meet in person the next day. So here we are, at the bar in the middle of a steaming-hot summer afternoon, to discuss not just his new show—about two vice principals trying to take down the newly minted principal of their high school, played by Kimberly Herbert Gregory—but also about the ways he's organized his life to remain a balanced and productive actor, friend, husband, and father. He more than showed up; he opened his heart and mind and let us both peer inside.

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ESQUIRE: The centerpiece of the second episode of Vice Principals, which aired last night, was an extended scene in which Lee and Neal destroy the principal's home. Was filming that scene fun?

Walton Goggins: It was glorious. Here's the thing about episode two of Vice Principals: You will not finish it without feeling like breaking shit.

I've admired Danny McBride from afar for a very long time. I don't have to do that anymore because he's now like a brother. I love the man. What this show will do for him, which I'm so excited about, is affirm his abilities in people's minds. This is all him—he wrote it with his writers, but it's his voice.

He and Jody Hill tapped into something with Foot Fist Way that has now come to pass in this country: the disenfranchised angry white American male. And whether they saw it coming or whether that's just what they found funny—whether they are a reflection of their times or they are a precursor—all of the sudden it's coalesced into this moment. It's sublime. When people see that this isn't just the fall semester, which is the first season, but it is fall and spring semesters—a full year of school with this faculty led by these two vice principals and the principle, Dr. Belinda Brown, played by Kimberly Herbert Gregory—you will not expect to be having the emotions you will be having in episode eighteen.

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Goggins

Courtesy of HBO

The show has received flak for portraying two white males trying to take down a powerful black woman. How do you take that?

I take that as a lazy writer and a lazy description of what the show is about. They write based on what they see in a couple of episodes. Can you judge a book on the first couple of chapters? I suppose they don't have a choice, but it's much deeper than what they've seen.

But you can't be surprised by that feedback in 2016.

There were those conversations, for sure. This story isn't about what you see at first glance—two white men against a black woman. This is a story about the destructive drive and absurd need some people feel to acquire power. And American capitalism has become that. It has become about one's access to power, and one's position of power, as opposed to an approach like: "Let's just listen to what everyone has to say. Collaboration is a good thing."

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And in some ways, Neal Gamby and Lee Russell are as much a reflection of the three pillars of our democracy—our country's faculty—and the conversations they have on a daily basis. Let's say we have three vice principals—the Supreme Court, Congress, and the president. And they spend their days bickering amongst themselves while most of us—regardless of what side of the political argument you're on—are pretty fucking reasonable. And they happen to be the students at North Jackson High School. They're just trying to get through their day. They're trying to get their backpack from one classroom to another.

Kimberly Herbert Gregory as principle Dr. Belinda Brown.

Courtesy of HBO

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If Lee were voting, would he vote for Trump?

I think Lee Russell would vote for himself. He'd write his name in on the ballot.

How did you get to this project?

I auditioned for a role in Eastbound & Down. I rolled up and there were five comedians from Saturday Night Live in the waiting room and I thought, What the fuck am I doing here? But I was thoroughly a fan when it came to these guys' work—Danny, Jody Hill, and David Gordon Green. I just wanted to meet Danny and say his words in front of him. I had no attachment to getting the job or not getting the job. We ended up having a really good time in the room. I think that they were a fan of my work. And while that one didn't work out, when it came to Vice Principals, they wanted me to consider Lee Russell. They sent me scripts for the first three episodes. I read the first and thought that it was one of the best comedies I think I've read. I looked at it as a drama that happened to be very, very funny. So we talked on the phone, and I knew what my version of Lee Russell was, and it turned out to be exactly what they were looking for.

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How do you feel about being seen as so often cast as a villain?

I think it's a blessing, not a curse. "Villain," to me, is a neon sign for three-dimensionality. Good guys more often than not are much more boring than villains, as long as you can unearth a villain's humanity. I'm really not interested in just playing a guy who walks around with a gun killing people, unless he has some humanity, too, and there's a reason behind why he's doing it.

And I don't know that anything I do is overtly a villain. People ask me to do this very nuanced, tenuous tightrope walk between a fallible human being who is just in some ways trying to overcome that fallibility. Take Vice Principals. This appears to be a show about the declining influence of the white American male, and whether or not he really has an argument. And Lee and Neal appear to be very bad guys. But once you watch it as an entire piece, what you realize is that it's really a story about friendship. And their redemption comes through their vulnerability and creating a connection with a person who is just as dysfunctional as they are, which allows them to become productive members of the world.

"'Villain,' to me, is a neon sign for three-dimensionality."

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Do you have a process when it comes to acting?

I don't believe you memorize lines. I believe that you memorize thoughts. Anthony Hopkins, who's an old friend—I got to spend the better part of two months of him when I was 28, 29 years old while we were doing a movie called The World's Fastest Indian—he was kind enough to let this very curious young man say, "How the fuck do you do what you do?" I had this same conversation with [Robert] Duvall when I did The Apostle with him. By now I've worked with five or six of my heroes. Hopkins said to me, "I read the script 300 times." And I said, "Come on, man. What if you're just walking into a convenience store and buying a six-pack of beer and you say 'How much is that?'" And he said, "Oh, I read that 250." My mentor, Harry Mastrogeorge, with whom I studied for the better part of a decade, espoused similar advice to what the five greats told me.

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How has it changed the way you think?

I think people are who they are and that it's impossible for someone to change. But what I also believe is that the thoughts that aren't working for you should get rotated to the back of your head. And if you decide on a daily basis to water the seeds that are of use, then you'll move in a different direction. But you always have the capability to be that other person, who will rear his head once or twice a day. And it's like, "Wait, I don't want to water that, I want to water this!"

Say you're married for five years and you got a divorce. Well, did you really like her? Did you really listen to her? Did you see her for who she really was? 'Cause I didn't at that time in my life, and now I do. I've been with my significant other for 11 years. And I know her. And she knows me. And I am fucked up. And my wife is fucked up. But goddamn it, I love her for it. I love her. I understand her.

And I think the same about myself before I learned this other way of working. All of it was there, I just didn't have a mentor to show me the way. Eventually, you come across people in this business who feel, as I feel, an inherent responsibility to passing along this knowledge to those who have the ears to hear it. And that's certainly what happened to me—it was a matter of reorganizing the thoughts I already had.

Nine times out of ten I wake up with a smile on my face. I am an early riser, and I wake up thinking anything is possible. Throughout the day it can get negative, and you react to it, and you try to temper that reaction or move past it. But I gave myself permission when this transition happened to fucking fall in love with myself. I genuinely like me. And I think I'm a great person. So often than not you're labeled conceited for saying that. Why would you get uncomfortable with a person who says, "I genuinely have taken the time to find out who I am"?

Nine of ten mornings you wake up happy. What do you do on that tenth morning?

Try to sleep another hour. [Laughs] See what happens when I wake up next.

"Nine times out of ten I wake up with a smile on my face."

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So you've been able to find balance?

"Normal" is a word that has no definition. It should be taken out of the English language. It has done far more harm than good. Let's change it to mitakuye oyasin, which in Lakota means "all my relations." Let's just use that. We're all striving for that. But that's the exception. The rule is that everyone is trying to make their way through the day the best they fucking can. And then hopefully, even if it's seconds before we check out of this planet, we have this moment where it is like, I am very clear about everything that is happening in my life right now.

Goggins as Lee Russell.

Courtesy of HBO

I've never needed to be right. And I've never cared about being wrong. But what I've cared about is seeing a situation for what it really is. And that begins for me with making myself a priority. First thing in the morning it's like, How are you feeling, man? If I am happy, my wife is happy. My son is happy. My friends know they have a harbor they can come to. I have everything in the world to give if I am in a good place. It usually only takes five or six minutes. And I have boundaries throughout the day—not reactionary boundaries, but boundaries that have been gained through years of experience to recognize something that I won't allow to be a part of my life anymore.

Describe a boundary.

If you show up as another actor and you aren't there to leave everything on the field, if you're looking at your fucking cell phone in between takes, then that's a real problem for me. A boundary for me is preparation. I've been around enough actors to recognize who hasn't done the work, and who has. Forest Whitaker is a killer. Chris Cooper is a killer. Duvall is a killer. Tony Hopkins is a fucking killer. Jennifer Jason Leigh is a killer. Tim Roth is a killer. Sam Jackson is a killer. Michael Chiklis? A killer.

So when I come across a person who isn't there to work, especially a person who is a little less experienced, I have no problem saying, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Leave that fucking camera rolling." And it's usually extremely liberating to them, because no one has said it to them before. No one has had to say it to me, because that's how I show up for everything in my life. A dinner, this interview.

Do you have difficulty leaving that intensity on set?

How does a policeman do it, or a Wall Street banker? For me, I don't leave a day of work that I'm not exhausted. It is the drive from set to home that is my transition. I walk in and I have a cigarette—I don't give a shit about the warnings, it's my life, it's what I do—and I'll have a whiskey or a beer and find a space for a moment of alone time for ten minutes, which allows me to enter my civilian life.

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"If you show up as another actor and you're looking at your fucking cell phone in between takes, then that's a real problem for me."

I'm sure your wife and son appreciate you taking that time.

I know that my greatest contribution to this planet will be the son that my wife and I are raising. And I know more than anything that if he is raised with love and respect and an appreciation of his autonomous nature, and his lack of need or want—and this has nothing to do with money, this is about being there for him. You're OK, man. You don't have to spend the time that I and a lot of others spent just trying to reach the surface of the water, just to swim. My son doesn't have to experience that. He knows that he is loved, that he is protected, that he listened to, that he is respected. And therefore his mind is free to invent a world is better than the one we live in.

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Fred Norris

How old is he now?

Five years old. He starts Kindergarten this fall. Thankfully he got in before Vice Principals was released. Because I don't know if they're going to let me in schools after this.

How old were you when you found a balance in your life?

Thirty-four years old! That's fucking old, man.

How did you get there?

When my wife and I were dating, and it was a very tumultuous time in my life, we were talking one night, as we do. That's one of the greatest joys of my relationship—sitting and talking an hour or two a night about everything. She was talking about this story she was working on about a revolutionary's point of view—she happens to be very politically motivated. And she was talking about the injustices of the world in a very passionate way and the revolution that needs to happen, and I looked at her and I said, "You know, I too am a revolutionary. But I'm just trying to change myself." If people approach it from that point of view, the world would be a much better place.

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How do you have the tools to change?

There is no silver bullet. Each person will at some point reach a bottom where they'll think, I don't want to live my life this way anymore. And I don't know that they'll have the answer once they make that statement, but they'll be asking the right question.

"I know that my greatest contribution to this planet will be the son that my wife and I are raising."

That's what happened to me. Mine happened to take place in India. It wasn't Eat, Pray, Love. It was that I was running away from shit for so long where I couldn't run anymore. On the steps of the ghats in Varanasi, I started crying uncontrollably, surrounded by all these people, overlooking the Ganges. And I said, "I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be this guy anymore." And I didn't know how to water those thoughts. But because I made that statement, then things just start happening. Once you make that decision, the path will be illuminated. You will stumble continuously. But you will be walking toward something, as opposed to running away from something. And I'd rather spend the rest of my life walking towards a light that I never reach than running from a light that is causing me this much pain.

Have you been back to Varanasi?

No. There's no need—I'm not asking those same questions anymore. And I don't have the time—I have a fucking five-year-old.

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